


The Plague Doctor and the White Death

by gypsyweaver



Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [2]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: COVID-19, Coronavirus, Ineffable Bureaucracy (Good Omens), Multi, Nonbinary Beelzebub (Good Omens), Nonbinary Pollution (Good Omens), Other, They/Them Pronouns for Beelzebub (Good Omens), They/Them Pronouns for Pollution (Good Omens)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-02
Updated: 2020-04-02
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:01:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,719
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23448958
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gypsyweaver/pseuds/gypsyweaver
Summary: Pestilence is back on active duty, thanks to Covid-19. On a dark and stormy night in Dallas, Texas, he receives a visit from an Archangel and his old frenemy, the Lord of the Flies.
Relationships: Beelzebub/Gabriel (Good Omens), Pestilence/Pollution (Good Omens)
Series: A Tale of Crowns and Coins [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1684990
Comments: 4
Kudos: 51





	The Plague Doctor and the White Death

**Author's Note:**

  * For [freemjnd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/freemjnd/gifts).



> CW: Swearing, sexual innuendo
> 
> That's about it. Let me know if I missed something.

Dallas Children’s Hospital, later that night

The medieval artists had always depicted him as an unhealthy specimen. Covered in gangrenous tissue or boils. But that was simply not true. Perhaps because the Lord of the Flies tended to ride in his wake (cleaning up his beautiful messes, letting their flies feast on the corpses), there had been some confusion.

No.

Just as Famine wore sophistication and War wore sexiness--he had always worn health. Currently, he looked like a robust, healthy middle-aged man. His complexion was lightly tanned, and his blue eyes twinkled with a benign intelligence. He was tall, and his auburn hair was silvering at the temples. He wore glasses (which he didn’t need) and a long white coat (which he had never earned).

He’d had many names over the years. Right now, his coat named him Dr. Heath Malcolm. Recently, he’d been busy promulgating theories on the contents of vaccines. He spoke quietly, gently, and an unquestionably confidence about Thimerosal levels in measles vaccines. He had numbers. He had facts. He couched his words in twisted reason, bad statistics, and a certain cognitive bias. He spoke plainly, in a language that the people understood. He was genuine in his delivery. Completely accessible, with a warm timbre and a breezy, confident cadence.

Consequently, he was asked to speak at a number of churches and banquet halls, radio shows and talk shows. Huge swaths of his listeners resisted vaccination. Of themselves and their children.

He’d spent the last two decades at it. And he was very good at his job. He had a YouTube channel with millions of subscribers.

People had been popping up to ask him about the new plague. They blew up his DMs on Twitter, the comments section of every video that he posted.

So, he’d made another video. Just as calm and mellow as the rest. Asking questions, because who could be mad at a question?

“What do we really know about this virus? Are we sure it even exists?” he began. In less than five minutes, Dr. Heath Malcolm (DrMal on Twitter and YouTube) dissembled the CDC and WHO’s carefully constructed advice for social isolation.

It began to pop up on a number of different mommy blogs, was sourced by facile (yet well-read) conservative “think pieces”, and his tweet of his video was liked and retweeted by the President himself. He went viral.

But he was a master of that, now wasn’t he?

He’d heard that kids were resilient, and he’d wanted to see the evidence. Children as silent (or nearly silent) carriers? Beautiful.

God Herself could not have come up with anything crueler.

Hence, an evening trip to Dallas Children’s hospital. A short investigation. Looking over some sick kids. The only ones presenting with severe symptoms were teenagers. Babies were nearly asymptomatic. Adorable little germ bombs, presenting with crankiness and low fevers. He’d advised rest, fluids, acetaminophen, and cuddles. Lots and lots of cuddles.

It rode in his eyes. Plain to see for anyone who was looking for it. The low, feverish gleam of triumph. Confirmation. He was rising. He could feel it. Rising to some new glory.

He hadn’t felt this good since the fourteenth century.

He stepped out of the hospital as an ambulance pulled up. He could feel the people inside. An injured little boy, a driver, and two paramedics. Both of the paramedics carried the virus. It had begun to tiptoe into the blood of the driver and the child. It would gain traction in both, attacking the lungs, then the kidneys, then the liver. The boy was likely to recover. Death would come for the driver, his heart already weak from a series of small heart attacks. The paramedics were (ironically) uninsured and wouldn’t seek medical care until they were near death. They’d continue to infect children, who would infect the old and infirm. Death would ride across this land, and soon. He’d already ridden through China and Europe.

This world was ripe as a blister, leaking juices and longing for the lance. Soon, so soon. Here was a perfect storm. But this flood was phlegm and fever. A flood of humanity, sick and frightened, stumbling and pleading for succor.

The clouds overhead were as thick as a down comforter, completely obscuring the stars that he’d never be able to see anyways. The light pollution was pretty bad here. The air stank of rain.

He was not surprised to see them. Maybe a bit surprised, but only that it was BOTH of them.

The Angel of the Dawn and the Lord of the Flies.

They waited for him, a huge shadow and a smaller one, away from the hospital under the arc of a streetlight. Between streetlight and clouds, a massive live oak spread its branches like a hand. He moved to meet them.

The angel held a box. Of course, he did.

Prince Beelzebub looked good, but they usually did on Earth. Still small, but the lack of an Apocalypse seemed to have softened their edges a bit.

The Archangel looked more feral than he’d ever seen him. A hunger had been awoken inside him. A dark and desperate thing.

Moreover, something had changed between the two of them. Something obvious even from his distance.

A shift.

They stood too close together. A certain comfort existed there that had not existed before.

One might be rising, and the other falling. Perhaps, they’d met in the middle. Stranger things had come to be in this world.

They weren’t fucking. Not yet, he did not think.

But soon. Very soon.

God must be laughing.

A few cold drops of rain fell on him, and steamed away. The fever raged in him. He felt hot enough to melt the sun.

He grinned at them as the night sky fell, in the fashion of Texas rain, over the three of them like a curtain.

“Gabriel,” he said. “And you.”

The Lord of the Flies crossed their arms tightly over their chest. “Pezztilence.”

“Still cold-blooded? That must be...inconvenient,” Pestilence replied, blythely.

The Archangel looked down at his companion. His face was lined with concern.

“I’m fine,” they said, with all of their accustomed boredom and none of their accustomed bite. “Let’zz get on with this.”

“So, uh, you’re back in active service,” Gabriel said. In his usual awkward fashion, he thrust his box out at Pestilence, who took it from his hands. “We were sent to inform you. Of that. That you’re back. Sign for the delivery.”

He thrust the clipboard at Pestilence, who scribbled something completely illegible on the line with a flourish. “I thought you outsourced this sort of thing.”

Gabriel took back his clipboard and it disappeared into his dove-grey greatcoat, which was turning charcoal in the cold rain. “Yeah. We did. Contract expired in 2018, and we chose not to renew.” He shrugged. “Without a Great Plan, who knows when we might need a delivery service?”

“I appreciate you coming out in this weather. Is She sending a flood, too?” Pestilence asked as he ripped into the box.

Gabriel looked up, the idiot, and got a faceful of rain. “Uh, no. I mean, yes. Yes, there’s going to be SOME flooding. But I think it’s going to be pretty localized.”

The crown gleamed, and the raindrops that lingered on the surface shattered the light. It was beautiful. He threw the box into the trash bin beside the three of them. He held the crown up, staring into its liquid silver depths. In his hands, the metal warmed and the water steamed from it. He lifted it to his brow, and found that it settled there lightly.

He felt his power rising, rising like his temperature.

“Where are we going?” he asked, feeling tipsy with the fever that rode in his blood. The virus grew in him, multiplied, exploded out of his pores, his breath, his saliva. “Not Megiddo, surely?”

“Venice,” Prince Beelzebub said. “You’ll find them there.”

“And you? Do I get to keep my honor guard?” he asked.

“Of course,” Prince Beelzebub said. A sickeningly eager grin spread across their face. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Gabriel nodded. “We’ll see you in Italy, then.”

He swept the Lord of the Flies up in his arms and disappeared in a flash of violet lightning. Pestilence could swear that the demon was smiling.

Of course, they were. Annoying little snot, leaving him here in Dallas to find his way to Venice. Some “honor guard”. The times had changed, and his whole being longed for the lingering taste of cheap cigarettes, for the heat of the only person he’d ever known that burned as hot as he did.

Pestilence sighed under the hammer of the rain. Getting a flight in this weather was going to be murder.

Morning, 3/17/2020. Venice, Italy

They sat, cross-legged, on a dock at the edge of the canal. The water was like thick, leaded glass. The sky was blue and clear. A cloud, as white as spun sugar, stretched across the sky lazily.

It was disgusting.

The clarity of the water did not indicate cleanliness. No, the water was (nearly) as fetid as it had been. Just undisturbed by people. Without humans and their boats, the sediment had settled to the bottom. No, the water wasn’t the problem.

It was the air. Clean, pure air. It made them sick.

They uncrossed their legs, allowing their feet to dangle in the water. A cloud of black ichor radiated from their skin...but it did not creep far away. Their dark little cloud was a very LITTLE dark cloud.

Their power was waning. A temporary setback. Probably very temporary. Humans did love to junk up their planet. They’d be back to it, and soon.

Hell, the brat at the airstrip hadn’t kept them down for a whole day. They’d be back.

For now, they enjoyed the feeling of their ichor leaving them and pooling around their legs. Of making their little black cloud and watching it swirl in the crystal water.

He’d be here soon. They were happy to see him. They’d missed him.

They laid back, feet still in the water, and stared up at the sky. Clear, blue.

Absolutely disgusting.

The clouds began to scud in. More and more. The whole sky went grey, and the air was heavy with ozone.

It was unnatural. That meant he would be here soon, and he had company.

The first face to look down upon them was the little demon’s.

“Someone’s feeling brave,” they said, looking up at the Lord of the Flies.

“Hm,” Prince Beelzebub said, noncommittally.

“What’s that mean?” asked the Archangel, rather unexpectedly.

“I kill their little pests,” they said, sitting up. “Where is he?”

“I’m here,” Pestilence said, slipping from behind Gabriel.

He looked so good, so healthy, standing there in his long white coat. Their feet were out of the canal and under them, quickly. They ran to him, leapt into his arms as they always had. Their legs wrapped around his waist and they felt his arms encircle them. Strong, safe arms.

“I missed you,” they whispered into his neck.

“I missed you, too, kid,” he replied, kissing them on the cheek.

“I’m weak,” they whimpered.

“I know,” he replied. “I can feel it.”

He was warm, so warm. But he always was. They leaned up, staring into his blue eyes as if it were the first time they’d seen them. Pestilence’s lips brushed theirs, which surprised the Archangel. Well, he was as dumb as a sack of feathers. The demon knew, as they’d ridden in the wake of Pestilence before.

The little Prince had never been a friend. No, in the beginning, when pollutants were organic, they used their annoying little bugs to clean up. Now, they were toxic to the bugs and toxic to the Prince.

Not so toxic, anymore. A setback. A temporary setback.

“You’ll be back in action, and soon,” Pestilence said. He was always a bit of a mindreader. “Remember the plague? There’s going to be so much death, babe. The corpses will end up in the water, and then you’re back in business.”

“Any word from the others?” they asked.

“Not in person, but through Facebook,” Pestilence replied. “War’s been cancelled. ISIS called off aggressions for the time being. TERRORISTS are practicing social distancing, if you can believe it. War is pissed! Famine’s enjoying the food shortages. He sends his love. We’ll probably be crossing paths, and soon. Death’s not on Facebook, but his Deadjournal says that he’s already ridden through China. He’s around here somewhere. And you and me, we’re set to ride through the States. I’m sure they’ll all be joining us soon.”

“Us? You...and me?”

“It’s a crown. Two can share it,” he said, and his lips on theirs were blisteringly hot. “Besides, there’s going to be so much waste. It’s not the same as what you’re used to, but it’ll sustain you.”

“It’s been so long since we’ve been able to ride together...”

“SARS sure was fun, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

They closed their eyes, savoring the memory. The phantom of China’s air pollution was sticky-sweet on their tongue. Delicious. And watching him rage through the humans, that was just as sweet. Unfortunately the Chinese were more prepared, more willing to listen to scientists and politicians. The States?

Oh, the States were positively RIPE.

“When do we leave?” they asked.

“I’ve got plane reservations for this afternoon. Dr. Malcolm and Mr. White.”

“Where are we landing?”

“New York. Then, we ride. New Orleans is looking to be a hotspot. And I know how much you love Baton Rouge.”

“Are the refineries still operational?”

He kissed them again, one of his slow and lingering kisses that tended to leave them dizzy. “The production of fossil fuels is considered an essential industry. They’re not taking the needle out of their arm anytime soon.”

They smiled. “Sounds delicious. Better than this fresh air hellscape.” They dropped out of his arms. “What about you two? Planning on following us around, bug boy?”

“No.”

“So what? Social isolation in Hell?”

“I think,” Pestilence said, wrapping an easy arm around Pollution’s waist. “I think that they may be fucking.”

The Archangel flushed and looked down. The demon stood there like a statue made of ice.

“Isn’t that interesting?” Pollution said, with a wry chuckle. “How long?”

Prince Beelzebub rolled their eyes hard enough to roll their whole head. “Don’t be childish.”

“How has he not exploded you?”

The demon startled. “Why would you assume--? Is it because he’s taller?”

And the angel blushed and blushed.

Pollution laughed as Pestilence wrapped his arms around them. He kissed them on the head. “We can leave them to their adventures in quarantine. You and I have a continent to ravage...and I have you to ravage.”

“Oh...that sounds...luscious.”

He released them, stepping towards the demon. “As usual, coins for the boatman.”

Pestilence squeezed the Lord of the Flies’ shoulder, and dropped two silver coins in the hand that they extended to him.

“They’re...always...so warm,” Prince Beelzebub said. “Enjoy your ride, but know that it will be short.”

“We’ll see. In the meantime, may those coins serve you well,” he replied, before returning to Pollution.

He’d ridden with the Prince before Pollution existed, though the two of them had never been friends. The two coins were an old joke. Coins to close Prince Beelzebub’s eyes, should their corporation sicken and fail. Silver, the old cure for any disease--and perhaps, (in a jaded, materialistic sort of way) still the cure for most. The coins seemed innocuous, but Pollution knew that they were made from Pestilence’s own blood, and so they harbored whatever plague that he was spreading.

His poison in their metal. A couple of coins to remind the demon who was once worshiped as a god of fertility and healing that they were often powerless in Pestilence’s wake. That when he rode, more died than Prince Beelzebub could save.

Pestilence wrapped a casual arm around Pollution, and gave the blushing Archangel and little Lord Beelzebub a merry wave. Then, the two of them turned away from Gabriel and his Prince. Pollution was happy to let Pestilence lead them to whatever came next.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> How long was March 2020? So long that I forgot that [Dallas flooded starting at the Ides of March](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv7xLHOB1qA). I looked up the weather for that night and it was just too perfect for the scene.
> 
> Comments and kudos make me smile! Concrit welcome!


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